by Mike Gayle
Vicky
‘Hi, Mum. Everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine. It’s just William. He woke up about half an hour ago saying that he was thirsty, then when I gave him water he said he needed a wee, then after he had a wee he said that he was too wide awake and could he stay up with me, and when I said that not being tired wasn’t a good enough excuse he started crying and wouldn’t stop until I said that I’d let him talk to you. He’s upstairs at the minute. Shall I put him on?’
None of this was a particularly big surprise. William hadn’t been sleeping well for a few weeks now. He’d regularly been waking a few times in the night with a head full of suggestions, comments and questions as though his young brain was working at such a high capacity that it was unable to contain itself.
Listening to the sound of static as Mum made her way upstairs to William’s room I thought about how it had taken me nearly half an hour to settle him down for bed, and how as I’d crept out of his room, all I’d wanted was to crawl into the bath and then fall into bed myself. Yet here I was, late at night, at a fancy-dress party trying my best to prove that I still had what it took to have a good time.
Mum put William on the phone.
‘Hello, sweetie. What’s up, my baby?’
‘Why aren’t you and Daddy here with me tonight, Mummy? I don’t like it when you go out.’
‘I’ve already told you a million times, sweetheart,’ I replied. ‘Mummy and Daddy are at Cath and Simon’s house for a party.’
‘But why are you at a party?’
‘Because we’re celebrating,’ I replied.
‘Celebrating what?’
‘Their birthdays. Cath and Simon have just turned thirty-five.’
‘But why?’
William could play the ‘why?’ game for hours without getting the slightest bit jaded. Normally I would have cut him short and insisted that he go to bed but my mind flicked forward to a row we’d had earlier in the day when I’d caught him banging one of his toy cars on the brand-new units in the kitchen and making a big black mark on the door. I well and truly lost it and ended up yelling at him so loudly that he burst into tears. Despite apologising profusely and taking him to the newsagents to buy a Mini Milk I could still feel the guilt lurking deep within me and I hoped that by indulging him in a few minutes of ‘Question Time’ I might be able to somehow end the day guilt neutral.
‘Everybody has birthdays, William,’ I explained. ‘And Cath and Simon have had one just like you had yours.’
‘Did they get presents?’
‘Probably.’
‘Did they get a Dalek piggy bank like me?’
‘I doubt it, sweetheart. Daleks can be very scary you know. They say: “Exterminate! Exterminate!”, don’t they?’
William giggled. ‘What does “Exterminate” mean?’
‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ I replied even though I’d told him the answer to this question pretty much every day since his birthday back in November.
‘Yes, it does,’ he said. ‘It means: “Kill”. I know because Daddy told me.’
‘Well, it’s only a pretend sort of killing. And they don’t do it to nice people. Only naughty aliens.’
‘I love my piggy bank.’
‘I’m sure you do, sweetheart.’
‘Will you put some money in it for me one day?’
‘Maybe when Daddy and I get home.’
For a moment it seemed as though he might have run out of questions but then he suddenly sparked to life again.
‘Mummy?’
‘Yes?’
There was a long silence. He was clearly still thinking of a question.
‘Who’s at the party?’
‘That you know? Well, there’s Mummy and Daddy, Uncle Cooper and Auntie Laura and of course, your favourite Auntie of all. Auntie Melissa.’
There was a long silence and then William said: ‘But where’s Uncle Paul’
‘He’s not here.’
‘He should be, shouldn’t he? Where is he? Why hasn’t he come?’
‘I don’t know, darling,’ I replied sadly. ‘I really don’t know.’
Melissa
I think Billy was more surprised than I was to see that I was still standing in exactly the same spot that he had left me.
‘I know this isn’t going to sound very cool,’ he said handing me a bottle of Budweiser, ‘but I didn’t think you’d be here. In fact I’d have bet a fair wedge of cash that you wouldn’t even still be at the party. Out of curiosity, what made you stay?’
‘Just that,’ I replied. ‘Curiosity.’
We talked a lot more and in between we made several trips to the kitchen to get more Budweiser and eventually, having exhausted nearly every remaining avenue for polite conversation and drunk enough to more than loosen our tongues, we reached the inevitable point in the evening where people, such as ourselves, who had spent most of the night wrapped in conversation with a single party began to share more than just basic biographies and so I told him about my relationship with Paul in some of but not all its gory detail.
‘And so that was the guy that you were talking to on New Year’s Eve?’ asked Billy when I’d finished.
I nodded.
‘That was the night he and I got back together.’
‘You must have really loved him,’ said Billy.
‘What makes you say that?’ I asked.
‘After everything he did you still went back to him.’
I thought for a moment how odd it was to see my life through Billy’s eyes.
‘I did love him. I loved him a lot.’ I suddenly flushed with self-consciousness. ‘I’m guessing I must seem more than a little bit pathetic to you.’
‘No, not at all,’ replied Billy. ‘I get it. We’ve all been there, haven’t we?’
I laughed. ‘I’m guessing right now you must be really regretting coming over to me. I know I look normal on the outside but inside I’m probably about this far,’ I held up my thumb and index finger with barely any space between them, ‘from being sectioned.’
Billy laughed. ‘First off, if you’re really that close to being sectioned then I’d happily be carted off with you and secondly, this might sound cheesy but I could never in a million years regret coming over to talk to you because I think you’re great.’
I was momentarily stumped for a response and when I did come up with one: ‘Why are you being so nice to me?’ I couldn’t actually get the words out so instead I offered to take my turn in liberating another pair of Budweisers from the kitchen.
Cooper
It was just coming up to midnight and Laura and I still weren’t speaking to each other. In fact for most of the party we’d been in separate rooms and on the rare occasions that we had been in the same room she had gone out of her way to ignore me.
Having reached my limit on what I was prepared to take, I decided to go home, so went in search of Laura to let her know. She was in the kitchen deep in the middle of a conversation with Cath and Simon.
‘It’s up to you whether you stay or go,’ I spat in Laura’s direction much to the alarm of Cath and Simon, ‘after all, I wouldn’t want to stifle your “independent spirit”, would I? But I thought it only polite to let you know that I’m off this very second and if you want a lift back home you’d better get ready.’
This was plainly a red rag to a bull. As Laura stormed after me I was already regretting my ultimatum and would’ve apologised to her on the spot were it not for the fact that she practically blew up before I could get a word out.
‘I can’t believe you just spoke to me like that in front of Cath and Simon,’ screamed Laura as she finally caught up with me by my car. ‘How dare you do that! Who do you think you are? My dad?’
‘Well, if I did think I was your dad then there would only be one person that I could blame for that and that would be you!’ I yelled. ‘Do you know what, Laura? I’m sick of this. I’m sick and tired of always feeling like I’m the res
ponsible adult in this relationship! How come I never get to just quit my job on a whim? How come I don’t get to suggest that we blow all our savings on a stupid bloody holiday? How come I’m the one who always has to worry about the future?’
Laura’s eyes widened in hurt. ‘No one’s asking you to do any of those things.’
‘No, of course not because they’ll just take care of themselves won’t they?’
‘How would you know if you never let them?’
‘And how would you know if you always rely on someone else to be your safety net?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Look.’ I was tired of us having a go at each other. I wanted this all to stop. ‘I’m sorry, it was nothing. Let’s just go home, eh? Sort things out there.’
‘It wasn’t nothing though, was it? Deep down it’s what you really think, isn’t it? That you’re my safety net and that without you I’d be lost?’
‘No, it’s not what I think.’
‘Say it.’ She pushed me hard in the chest forcing me to take a step backwards. ‘Say it if you mean it. Go on! For once in your life say what you mean.’
Straight away I was back to being angry. Angry at the situation, Laura’s response, and most of all angry at myself.
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ I snapped. ‘I do think that you get to act the way you do because you can rely on other people to pick up after you. Me, your . . . mum and dad . . . your brother . . . even your kid sister. It doesn’t really matter who does the picking up as long as it’s not you.’ I waited for her retaliation but there was none. She looked at me in disbelief. ‘So that’s it? You’ve got nothing to say? I tell you a few home truths and you just clam up like you can’t be bothered to talk to me any more?’
Laura looked away. She’d started crying like she always did when we argued. I hated seeing her cry. I was wishing that the whole thing would just go away when she mumbled something incomprehensible.
‘I can’t hear you,’ I replied, ‘speak more slowly.’ I took a step towards her and reached out to wipe away her tears.
‘The engagement ring,’ she said looking up at me. ‘I said I found the engagement ring.’
‘When?’
‘Tonight.’
‘How?’
‘I went looking through your things while you were upstairs trying to find proof that you’d been wasting money too.’
I closed my eyes. This wasn’t the way I’d imagined proposing to her.
‘Look, I’m sorry, okay?’
‘What for?’
‘For everything.’
Laura shook her head. ‘But I don’t want you to be sorry.’ She took hold of my hands. ‘I love you, Cooper. More than you’ll ever know. You’re the sweetest, kindest, most patient man. Even if I lived to be a hundred I’ll never be able to repay you for everything you’ve done for me. And yes, one day I really would like to marry you. But what you said just now is true. I do depend on other people. You are my safety net. Without you I’ve got no one to catch me if I fall. But tonight you’ve made me realise that I can’t be with you unless I can catch you too. And I’m not that person right now. And I’ll never be if you’re always by my side.’
‘So what are you saying?’ I took a breath. ‘That it’s all over?’
‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘I’m saying that I need to stand on my own two feet. I’m saying that I am going to go travelling, but I’m going to go without you. And while I’d love you to be here and still be in love with me when I get back, I’ll understand if you’re not. Either way this is something I just have to do.’
Melissa
It was quarter past midnight, I’d returned to the living room with two Budweisers and Billy and I were now talking about his past relationships.
‘Since I turned seventeen I’ve had a total of four “proper” relationships,’ began Billy. ‘The shortest lasted about four months and the longest a year a half.’
‘Who was the year-and-a-half girl? A sixth-form sweetheart?’
Billy looked puzzled. ‘How did you guess?’
‘It’s always the way,’ I replied. ‘Life’s so much easier when you’re seventeen.’ I smiled and encouraged him to carry on.
‘Well, on top of the longest and the shortest relationships there are probably between six and eight what you might call “improper” relationships most of which to a greater or lesser extent I now regret.’
‘I’ve had a few of those,’ I replied. ‘Anything else?’
Billy shrugged and sighed. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you this because I didn’t want to get into it but in the spirit of full disclosure I think I ought to confess that prior to meeting you on New Year’s Eve I was deeply “in like” with a girl called Freya.’
‘Sounds like a game girl. So what happened?’
‘Do we have to do this?’
I shook my head. ‘No, but I can tell you want to.’
‘You can read me like a book, can’t you? Okay, well it went like this: we’d been mates for a while, things sort of came to a head around Christmas when a late night kiss goodnight got quickly rebuffed.’
‘I’m assuming by her?’
‘You assume correctly. I haven’t seen her since then and to be truthful I’ve sort of lost interest in her.’
‘Because she knocked you back?’
Billy shook his head. ‘No, because on New Year’s Eve I went to a party with my sister and met a girl wearing red Converse baseball boots who had great eyes and a nice smile. I’ve sort of sworn myself off all other girls until I’ve made Converse Girl my own.’
I didn’t know where to look. I was fancying him more and more with each passing second but I couldn’t escape the feeling that this was all going to end badly.
‘Look, Billy,’ I began, ‘you do realise that Converse Girl is a good ten years your senior, don’t you?’
‘I don’t care if she’s forty years my senior,’ replied Billy. ‘I think she’s ace.’
Ace! I couldn’t remember the last time someone my age had used that word let alone in reference to me. While my inner reaction was embarrassment my outward reaction was to roll my eyes in a comedy fashion.
Billy’s reaction was far more bold: he simply leaned over to me and kissed me very softly on the lips.
‘Wow, I wasn’t expecting that.’
‘Me neither. I was sort of making it up as I went along. Was it okay?’
‘It was very satisfactory.’
‘Good.’ He kissed me again. This time a long, slower kiss than before.
‘For future reference,’ asked Billy as I reflected on just how good this second kiss had made me feel. ‘You know that night when we first met . . . the dangling my foot in the air thing . . . that didn’t really work for you, did it?’
‘It wasn’t the best chat-up attempt I’ve ever experienced but it was definitely one of the most unusual.’ I looked at Billy, shook my head in disbelief and took his hands in my own. ‘Look, you’ll have to forgive me but this is all just a bit weird for me,’ I began, ‘the thing is . . . well, the thing is . . .’
‘What?’
‘The thing is you were born in the Eighties.’
‘And?’
‘Well, I wasn’t. And it’s just sort of strange thinking that people born the year I turned ten look like you now. In my head I’d just assumed people born in the Eighties would still be at school studying for GCSEs rather than hanging around fancy-dress parties in the suburbs of Manchester getting off with girls old enough to be their older sisters.’
‘Is this contagious?’ asked Billy. ‘When I’m in my thirties will I automatically start getting freaked out when people born the decade after mine start joining the police force?’
‘It is sort of inevitable,’ I replied. ‘In fact it’s obligatory. Don’t you get it? Your view of the world is completely different from mine.’
‘So what if it is?’
‘I don’t know. It’s just that I’m guessing it will mat
ter at some point.’
‘Like when you make jokes that include references to TV programmes I don’t remember? It won’t happen. Everything’s repeated these days. I remember the seventies without ever being there and if there is anything you say that isn’t covered by watching UK Gold, I’ll look it up on the internet.’
‘I’m not making any sense, am I?’
Billy shook his head. ‘Not really, but I’d put that down to the Alzheimer’s.’
‘Listen here, you young whipper-snapper,’ I protested. ‘My memory is perfect, okay? Look, you know what I’m saying. I just don’t understand why you’re sitting here with me when there must be tonnes of girls your own age who would snap you up in a second.’
‘First off, which tonne of girls, where? I haven’t seen them so I don’t know how you have. Second, even if they did exist, I know for a fact that they would all be inferior to you, because . . . they just would, wouldn’t they?’ He paused, clearly pondering a big question. ‘Look, this might be a bit forward or whatever but I’m starving. I don’t suppose you fancy sharing a cab back to Chorlton and getting something to eat? Neelams on the Borough Road is great. What do you think?’
I assessed the situation: here I was about to leave a party with a guy ten years my junior who I’d only properly met a few hours before. This wasn’t me. This wasn’t the kind of thing I did at all.
‘Do you know what?’ I replied, thinking how good it felt to have my mind occupied by someone other than Paul. ‘Right now I can’t think of anything in the world that I’d rather do.’
Two Months Later
Laura’s Leaving Do
June 2006
Melissa
It was a lovely warm Saturday evening, I was feeling lighter than air having handed in the last of my course work for the academic year and Billy and I were walking hand-in-hand on our way down to Laura’s leaving do at Blue-Bar. It was hard to believe that in a matter of days Laura would be off for a whole year. A year seemed too long to be bearable.
‘So where is it she’s going on her trip?’ asked Billy.
‘She’s flying into Mumbai on Tuesday, seeing a bit of India, then she’s moving on to south east Asia, then Australia, New Zealand, the US, Cuba and South America for the final leg.’